The Americans is a show about a marriage gift-wrapped as a spy thriller, and as the levels of inherent continue to increase throughout Season 5, elements of horror are also weaving their way through the narrative. Certain shots lean into this aspect, with the Jennings house taking on the characteristics of a foreboding building instead of the sanctuary that a family home tends to be; last year director Chris Long closed out the finale with this at its most explicit presenting picture perfect suburban living with strong ominous overtones.
That image could have been the opening shot of any number of Amityville / Conjuring-like movies, though the threat that lingers aren’t malevolent spirits but a girl being told she can’t see the boy from across the street because of who his father is. Danger lurks both inside the house and from external influences and Philip and Elizabeth will do all they can to protect their family, even if ultimately -- and to borrow from Walter White -- they are the danger. Long also directed the first two episodes of Season 5, and he continues to shoot the exterior of this family home in this manner.
As Paige becomes more embroiled in this world, including self-defense lessons from her mother, she been learning aspects of the kind of operations her parents are part of and doing some snooping of her own; Paige is already in deep and it is too late to turn back. Pastor Tim asked the question in his diary about whether Philip and Elizabeth are monsters – is that true? Can we view The Americans through a horror lens, and if so, can the ‘Final Girl’ trope can be applied to Paige? Further, is the Jennings’ household a House of Horrors?
To the first point: are Philip and Elizabeth monsters, or have they just committed monstrous acts all in the name of country? (And even so, does that necessarily absolve them?) The body count that can be attributed to Philip and Elizabeth is slasher movie high; often these are ‘wrong place, wrong time’ casualties such as the security guard in Season 1 who Elizabeth shot, the food delivery woman in Season 3 who Elizabeth also shot, the septic tank driver in Season 2 who died from exposure, and recently, the researcher who had his back snapped all because he wanted to get some late night work done in the lab. It is safe to say they have a lot innocent of blood on their hands, and while they take no pleasure from these acts, it certainly adds some weight to the question Pastor Tim has asked.
The Jennings have been stalked and done the stalking, with a murder mystery at the center of Season 2 having Larrick as the Big Bad as he tracked them down like he’s the T-1000. Because everyone loves a twist, it transpired that the son of their spy pals was the culprit, and thus, danger lurks in the friendliest of places -- including a motel room near a theme park. What The Americans excels at is pushing the Cold War paranoia levels inward, so the fear of getting caught comes not only from a traditional external source such as the FBI, but also from within the confines of their home. Paige has been pursuing the truth since the end of Season 1, after questioning what her parents were really doing in the laundry room (and the pile of folded clothes did nothing to sate her curiosity).
“Curiosity killed the cat,” the saying goes, but there is another version of this that ends with “but satisfaction brought it back.” That resurrection element underscores the gratification from learning the truth. Curiosity is also one aspect of the ‘Final Girl’ trope, a term was coined in 1992 by Carol J. Clover in Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. The ‘Final Girl’ is, as the name suggests, the woman who makes it to the end of horror movie with one final triumphant act vanquishing the ‘monster:’ she is the victim-hero, as she must endure torment and pain before escaping the bloody fate that has befallen all of her friends. She is observant in the ways that everyone else around her is not, can spot a warning signs, and her resourcefulness is one thing that allows her to beat the odds.
While The Americans is pretty far removed from the slasher genre -- even if the body count is just as high -- Paige shares a lot of these attributes of the ‘Final Girl’ trope. She was early to recognize something was up, and that beneath the picture perfect suburban living lingered something far darker. She also wasn’t easily put off seemingly good explanations like an aunt with dementia, or another family canceling their random trip to the middle of nowhere, leading to a middle of the night surprise getaway. Ultimately, she pushed until she found out the truth about her parents until they finally spilled their secret identities.
A lot of versions of the ‘Final Girl’ exist, but they tend to share the same ‘good girl’ characteristics: no drinking, drugs, or sex. Paige’s rebellion has centered on embracing religion, and the only drinking has been a beer shared three ways with Matthew and Henry. Sex was a topic broached this season, and a frank conversation with her parents dampened any kind of mood (though one study session with Matthew did result in some over-the-clothes action). Still, it’s all been pretty chaste. So far, Paige is ticking those ‘Final Girl’ do-gooder boxes and with the help of her parents she is being set up for surviving this dangerous world.
(Sidenote on Henry, because he so often is a sidenote: there was that storyline where the siblings didn’t get picked up at the mall, and Henry showed ‘Final Girl’-like instincts by smashing his bottle over the head of the random creepy guy who they had scored a lift with. If Henry was at all curious about his parents (and now his sister’s), behavior he would be dangerous. But right now, I’m more concerned that he’s being set up as innocent collateral damage; just as he is about to escape, something terrible might happen. Him heading off to boarding school feels very much in the vein of “this is my last day of work.”)
As for how Paige is handling these revelations about her parents’ work and her role in it, after finding Paige asleep in her wardrobe it was apparent that the incident in the parking lot was having a profoundly deep psychological impact on her. Seeing your mother stab a guy in the throat is going to do that, and a closet makes for a great hiding place. As Laurie found out in Halloween, though, it also doesn’t give you many options for escaping if you are discovered, and it is hard not to think of this iconic moment when this space is utilized like this. Later on in the Matthew Rhys-directed episode “The Committee on Human Rights” he films a Jennings bedroom scene from inside the wardrobe using the slats to give the impression of surveillance. Someone is always watching.
This leads us into the idea of the Jennings’ home as a House of Horrors, though other Halloween comparisons come in the form of Nathan Barr’s score, and when Philip was out for a run last week the music dipped into John Carpenter synthesizer territory. Recent horror film It Follows borrowed heavily from the Halloween soundtrack playbook, and this also lends itself to this scene and the general overtones of The Americans; while there is nothing supernatural at work, there is this constant paranoia of being pursued. And because this season has done a very good job of raising the dread levels, there’s an element of waiting for something terrible to befall them.
Taking seemingly innocuous parts of the house and giving them new meaning is something The Americans excels at; the kitchen as the heart of the home is where confrontations and truths are unveiled. Down in the basement with all its nooks and crannies is where the real spy work gets done from makeshift darkroom to code-breaking. Emergency dentistry also took place in this tiny room and pulling teeth with pliers -- along with suitcase packing a person -- is the nearest The Americans has come to physical horror. And yet they turned this particular watching-through-your-fingers tooth extraction scene into one of the most intimate and tender moments between Philip and Elizabeth. The person using this tool to extract a tooth is usually trying to extract information and inflict maximum pain; here it is an act of love and demonstrates the ultimate level of trust.
In the pilot, the garage played host to a ticking time bomb, hiding traitor Nikolai Timoshev in the trunk of their car. Timoshev and Elizabeth’s paths crossed years ago when she was training to be a KGB officer and he used his position of power as his reason for raping her. Their garage is also where Timoshev met his end at the hands of Philip after discovering what he did to Elizabeth; now this space is where Elizabeth trains Paige in an effort to prepare her and also cure her of the nightmares she has been having post parking lot attack.
Training hard is what Elizabeth did to protect herself from men like Timoshev, and the only evidence he was ever in the confines of the Jennings home comes from the newer patch of drywall, after Elizabeth kicked his head through it. It’s a visual reminder, and a spot that Elizabeth briefly focuses on when telling Paige about her own experience and how she became a victor over fear.
The home is never entirely safe from intruders as Elizabeth found out in the Season 1 episode “Trust Me,” as she headed up the stairs with a kitchen knife in hand, breaking all the rules for surviving a horror. Elizabeth ends up in a room decorated with photos of her kids taken without their knowledge; it is every parent's worst nightmare, and part of a test to see who is leaking secrets. Being a spy is a perilous profession and one that could put everyone they care about in danger. Again it is about protecting their family at all costs, and by exposing Paige to this way of life it opens her open to the hazards of this vocation, while also giving her a new skill set as a form of defense.
Last year I wrote about why The Americans has been so successful with integrating teenagers into the wider narrative, and this season continues to deliver on this front. The common example for how wrong this can go is 24 and to a certain extent Kim Bauer is also the ‘Final Girl,’ having ended up in plenty of precarious situations -- cougars, Kevin Dillon’s cabin -- while using her limited resources to survive. Unlike Kim, Paige comes across as not just stumbling upon things; there is deliberate thought behind her actions. She has continued to snoop at Pastor Tim’s despite being warned against this, and the intelligence she has gathered points to the overwhelming fears that Philip has been having about his own broken psyche and the damage he and Elizabeth have inflicted.
Bathed in red light, and jumping between Pastor Tim’s observations while the increasingly frenetic Bauhaus track “Slice of Life” provides the soundtrack, the Jennings read each thought and hot take by Pastor Tim. It is a battle for good versus evil with Paige’s soul up for grabs, and this scene plays like the big serial killer lair discovery where the heroes see the collage of scribbling and photos on the wall. Except the morality lines are muddied here because Elizabeth and Philip have themselves done very bad things, and they are the subject of these musings.
Paige’s reaction to her parents reading these sentiments is ambiguous. Did she turn the tables and create her own agency here? Is it going to be Paige, with her newfound knowledge and fighting skills, who will earn the ‘Final Girl’ crown and make it out of this spy mess alive?
The Americans airs Tuesdays on FX.
